Category Archives: Media analysis

The Soft Hackery Of Ron Fournier

Ron Fournier writes on Benghazi and the IRS’s probable misbehavior: Why does this matter? Because a president’s credibility matters. President Bush’s second term effectively ended when Americans grew tired of his administration’s spinning and dissembling over Iraq and Katrina. They … Continue reading

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The Future Of Journalism: Theoretically Possible, Practically Impossible

Ann Friedman thinks now is the most exciting time to be a journalist. All of her reasons are, in fact, cause for cheer. But the underlying problem is that none of this makes journalism profitable. If companies can’t make money doing … Continue reading

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LOLGRIEF

I don’t know if they’re trying to be cute, or what, but this teaser from a famously contrarian web publication is a dispiriting affront to good taste:

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For Want Of A Cell

Matt Yglesias opens, properly, by noting the lack of accountability among policy elites: So this is huge. Or, rather, it won’t matter even a tiny little bit but it ought to be a big deal anyway. You’ve probably heard that … Continue reading

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Less Pollin’, More Learnin’

In this wonderful country of ours, politicians/organizations/corporations spend millions upon millions of dollars trying to figure out how our citizens feel about the major political issues of our day.  Only, as it turns out, they’re not really measuring the opinions of an … Continue reading

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Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

DougJ writes a lengthy post on David Brooks, concluding: Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin sell gold and guns. David Brooks sells tote-bags and books. Mutatis mutandis, they’re exactly the same. Brings to mind an old McSweeney’s post: I have been … Continue reading

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Good Riddance

The Washington Examining is a free, daily, right-wing, newspaper (Edit: I accidentally left out “tabloid”) that often gets handed out near Metro (subway) entrances/exits.  To build a significant readership in DC ,they probably would’ve had to pay people to read it, and … Continue reading

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Blogs And The Iraq War

I think this is entirely true: Looking back at some of the commentary in the run up to the Iraq war, it is hard to ignore how “political” its orientation is, and how nonacademic the arguments being made are. There … Continue reading

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The Liberal Media And The Iraq War

From Howard Kurtz at CNN: [Before the Iraq War, Washington Post articles] questioning the evidence or rationale for war were frequently buried, minimized or spiked.

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The Magical Powers of Camp David

Tom Brokaw thinks that if Obama and the Republicans would just spend a few days at Camp David, this whole sequester mess would sort itself out.  He blames Obama for not sending that invite: Speaker Boehner, and nearly every other … Continue reading

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When All The Respectable People Are Wrong

Ta-Nehisi Coates captures the run-up to the Iraq invasion: It seemed, back then, that every “sensible” and “serious” person you knew — left or right — was for the war. And they were all wrong. Never forget that they were … Continue reading

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Why the Hate?

Over at my favorite crazy right-wing blog (National Review’s The Corner), Julie Gunlock levels the lowest insult of all at Michelle Obama – by which I mean that she compares the First Lady to George W Bush: In a piece … Continue reading

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Why No One Who Likes America Votes For Republicans

Ezra Klein discovers that Republicans have no policy preferences: The opening anecdote [of Klein's latest column arguing that Republicans would agree if they only knew how much the president was offering to compromise] was drawn from a background briefing I attended … Continue reading

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Bob Woodward: Like Dennis Miller, But With Less Knowledge Of History

Here’s Alex Pareene from the other day: Woodward went on “Morning Joe” this morning, and he continued his brutal assault: “Can you imagine Ronald Reagan sitting there and saying ‘Oh, by the way, I can’t do this because of some budget … Continue reading

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Activism on the bench in real life

Whenever a judge somewhere decides that the Constitution perhaps covers something that we hadn’t considered before, the right wing goes nuts over activist judges. So I would love to know how they feel about this snippet from today’s VRA argument … Continue reading

Posted in Law, Media analysis, News and Current Events | Tagged , , , , | 22 Comments

How Media Bias Distorts The News: Obamacare Costs

There are a few headlines trumpeting Sen. Jefferson Beauregard Sessions‘ take on a new GAO study on the Affordable Care Act. Sessions notes that the study shows that Obamacare adds a few kajillion dollars to the debt over the next … Continue reading

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How Media Bias Helps The Republican Party

I’m bumping this post from the other day up, because I feel like it. I buried under a few other posts at the time.  The essential fact about the current political moment is that the Republican Party has completely abandoned any … Continue reading

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But does he float?

I got my National Journal email this afternoon and, under the heading “Hagel Still Has Much To Prove”, Jill Lawrence includes this priceless chunk of crap: It’s hard to say which was more painful: watching one senator after the other, … Continue reading

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